irway should be accessible to any bedroom. An
emergency doorway will make this possible.

If the garage is attached to the house it should be lined with a fire
resisting material. Metal lath and plaster or a good grade of plaster
wall board is preferred. The door between house and garage should, of
course, be fire resisting and self closing.

There is one other refinement which the country house owner may take
into consideration, especially if he happens to own an historic old
house. That is the installation of a system of perforated pipes in the
dead air spaces behind all walls connected with storage tanks of
carbon dioxide under pressure. If a fire breaks out, turning on this
system will flood the house with a gas that will smother all flame.
Mount Vernon is a notable example of a house so equipped.

So much for the more or less man-produced fire hazards. There is,
however, the occasional fire that comes down from heaven. The National
Board of Fire Underwriters has proved by careful investigation that a
properly installed and maintained system of lightning rods will give a
house ninety-eight per cent protection. It does not prevent the
building from being struck, but it does provide an easy and direct
path to earth for the lightning discharge, thus preventing damage and
destruction. This has nothing to do with the old school of lightning
rod salesmen trained in medicine show methods. Proper equipment and
competent men working under inspection by the Underwriters
Laboratories are now available. Incidentally, radio antennae should be
properly grounded and have an approved lightning arrester.

There is one more possibility of disaster from lightning. Ordinary
wire fencing mounted on wooden posts can become so highly charged with
electricity during a thunder storm that no living thing is safe within
thirty feet of it. Proper grounding is again the remedy and is
relatively simple. At every fifth post an iron stake should be driven
deep enough to reach permanent moisture. Connect this to the fencing
by a wire tightly wrapped around the stake and each strand of the
fencing. This causes the electricity generated during a storm to
escape harmlessly into the ground, just as it does through the cables
of a properly installed set of lightning rods.

WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

[Illustration]

_CHAPTER XVI_

WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

With life in the country, there are times when the innate perverseness
of the inan